With record-smashing ridership, RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa turns 50

The destination for cyclists at the 50th anniversary RAGBRAI lies 500 miles east of their Sioux City start in Davenport, where those braving the daunting Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa will finally dip their front tires into the Mississippi River to mark their journey’s end.

For many, that journey began Sunday, when 20,000 weeklong riders ceremoniously bobbed their back wheels in the Missouri River and pedaled away.

For Will Laverman, 23, the dunk of his army-green mountain bike’s thick wheel marked the start of a long-awaited post-college vacation with two friends.

“I’ve never had a ride quite like this before,” he said.

Nearby, Derek Leonard, 38, began his ride alongside his family. His 6-year-old was strapped into a tandem bike seat behind him. His 8-year-old rode alongside him. His wife, afoot, carried a baby.

Leonard is also riding with his father for the 13th time.

“It’s in your backyard, but you get to see things that you don’t see every year,” he said.

Leonard’s kids rode in stints for the first time last year, he said. He’s looking forward to seeing how far they go this year.

About 100 yards into the journey, the bikers passed under an American flag flown from a red firetruck’s extended ladder. They also passed by Debbie Modlin, who offered ecstatic waves.

The lifelong Sioux City resident’s voice grew scratchy as she hollered at the passersby while volunteering to direct traffic.

“It is so exciting to see that many people,” Modlin, 65, said.

Organizing the ride without its countless volunteers would be impossible, said Anne Lawrie, the ride’s cycling director.

This year’s trip promises to be the largest in the event’s history, a tall order for the tour that is already the world’s largest.

Organizers expect to unofficially smash a world record for largest group bike ride Wednesday, when over 70,000 cyclists are anticipated, Lawrie said. The record, which organizers are not seeking to officially break with accreditation, stands at 48,615, according to Guinness World Records.

Among the total participants, 20,000 weeklong riders have organizers working at fever pitch, Lawrie said. And the anniversary’s emotional electricity has spread to the route’s towns, she said.

“It’s unlike any other ride,” she said. “It’s this rolling festival that is a safe space outside of any sort of distraction. Your cellphones typically don’t work. You don’t have to worry about what’s going on back home. You just get to be with each other.”

The ride started 50 years ago, when two Des Moines Register journalists began the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. Lawrie credited the dedication of small towns for its long-running success, as it cycles through different routes and host towns each year.

When RAGBRAI passes, rural town populations can, if only for hours, explode from hundreds to tens of thousands, she said.

“Those towns, 100%, have so much pride in the community and so much pride in their people. They want to show that to you. They want to show you as a rider what makes them so special,” Lawrie said.

The go-at-your-own-pace trek highlights the vibrancy and progressive spirit of rural Iowa, dispelling many preconceptions, she added.

As riders passed through Sioux City’s outskirts in the morning, families gathered in long driveways to cheer them on, with canned beverages in hand.

Suburbia softly faded to farmland. Soybean and cornfields lined the two-lane highway filled by an hourslong line of cyclists. Temperatures rose, and the smell of sun-cooked manure smacked the riders’ faces as they slogged up and raced down rolling hills that one could never train for in Chicago.

However, the pain of legs burning in ascent disappeared amid the many pastured oases lining the roads, where locals sold corn, beer, cakes, pickle juice and pie from trucks and farm yards.

At a stop in Kingsley, population 1,400, a man used a loudspeaker to beckon visitors to Eric Frahm’s grocery store.

Fruit, yogurt, Gatorade and water were Hometown Pantry’s big sellers Sunday, Frahm said. With crowds lining Kingsley’s Main Street for food and music, the quiet town he’s called home for four years didn’t look like it does most Sundays, he said.

“Normally, if this wasn’t going on, I think a lot of people would be going to church, hanging out with their families, going to the golf course,” he said.

People in Kingsley don’t see crowds like this often, Frahm said. And people coming through might pick up on the small town’s peace, he hoped.

In Washta, Ross Seymour found shade under a tree with his son, Jacob.

The father from La Crosse, Wisconsin, said it was a chance for the two to spend more time together, a joy that work schedules make difficult. His son pointed out they live in the same town and see each other every week.

“Quality time,” said Ross, 62, who biked across the country when he was 26 years old, the same age as his son now.

The people who gave Ross coffee an hour into the ride had been kind, he said. The police officers blocking intersections also were nice, Jacob added. A state trooper’s car played pop hits on the road feet away from their tree.

In the back half of the day’s 72-mile tour, bizarre bikes dotted the asphalt path. One man rode in what looked like a bobsled on wheels. Another towed a massive white cross behind his bike.

Two men pedaled a tandem recumbent bike, donning headsets similar to the ones pilots wear. Another rider sported a bike with normal wheels and a seat around seven feet in the air. And in the canal next to the road, another person rode a horse.

Thousands of tents lined Storm Lake at the day’s end. Dozens of riders jumped into the water. Some applied soap to turn the town’s body of water into a shower.

When Tony Bates walked down to the lake and looked across, his mind was on what comes next.

There aren’t many hills in his home of the Detroit suburb of Southfield, the 48-year-old said. He cramped up a bit in the last 20 miles. At his campsite, he looked forward to massaging his legs and stretching.

“I gotta save myself,” Bates said. “Definitely want to take it a little easier tomorrow.”

But he encountered only seven cars as he rode, he said. The absence of cars in the cyclist’s paradise was another new experience, adding that he learned Iowa is both unshaded and not flyover country.

jsheridan@chicagotribune.com